Mike Townsend:Today's interview is with Saeed Aldarmaki. He is the CEO of Sheesha finance.Sheesha finance has raised a, roughly 10 million in funding and they are aleading defi mutual fund that makes a diversified premium cryptocurrencyportfolio accessible. And rewarding say it is based in Dubai. We talked aboutthe impact that living in Dubai has on creating Sheesha finance.

We talked about what Sheesha's doing in the world morespecifically and the impact global trade and finance are having in the middle eastand throughout the world, as well as his take on the trajectory of the economy.Hope you enjoy this conversation here. Saeed Aldarmaki

Mike Townsend: Allright, Saeed. I'm excited to chat with you. You are working on a few differentprojects, we're chatting pre-show, but you really focus on Sheesha finance,which as I understand has raised about 10 million building out defi tools anddifferent different aspects in DeFi. I'd love to learn about what, whatcurrently has been built and then where you guys see things going the future.

Saeed Aldarmaki:Yeah, sure. Thanks, Mike. So about two years ago, I came up, came up with theidea of a DeFi platform that is trying to disrupt the traditional VCtraditional incubator and traditional accelerator model. And that's when Ithought about Sheesha finance and had a couple of friends who I brought alongand kind of shared ideas and thoughts.And launched the project 15 months. thatwas on the Ethereum blockchain Binance smart chain. then at the beginning ofthis year, we launched on Polygon blockchain two. business model was, is it's apure kind of very early stage incubator and accelerator focused on blockchainand crypto startups across many different use cases. Many different blockchainnetworks. For the last 15 months, we've added about 70 projects to portfolio.and we have about 50 people working in the company now and we've been talkingto really like very innovative, amazing kind of people that have reallyinteresting ideas that have good potential and we've been very selective withthe projects that we work with and we come across. So many different projectsand I think kind of seeing some good, good momentum and, and growth, and we'vebeen doing well, even though the markets slowed down over the last six to ninemonths, but I think it's, it's just been a long term kind of process that we'vebeen following. I'm excited about the near term future and the long-termfuture.

Mike Townsend: SoYou've raised the 10 million was for app capital allocation. So investing in,is it specifically, is it only investing? You guys aren't building anything.And then how do you sort of handle deal flow and identify the types ofinvestments you're looking for?

Saeed Aldarmaki:Yeah. So when we first started off was more kind of a VC model where we weretrying to disrupt the VC model out there and we were deploying capital across alot of different, very early stage projects. we have a team that's focused onresearch and due diligence. And then, we run through a rigorous kind of duediligence process with any potential projects that we're talking to before wekind of put it to an investment committee to look at the pros and cons and thepro the benefits and, and drawbacks, of a specific project and which kind ofsupport they might need in the future or in the current term. And tend to bevery selective with the, with the projects that we go for.

We do have at the moment about more than 200 strategicpartners, whether those are kind of exchanges or launch pads or liquidityproviders or market makers or marketing experts or. Whatever it is BD legalcompliance token economy. We have teams that are focused on all these differentareas and we try to be really as active as we can with, our portfolio projects thenafter we kind of deployed all the capital that we wanted to, then we pivotedthe business model to actually incubate strategically advise and incubate earlyprojects instead of investing at an early stage, but obviously, part of what wehelp portfolio projects with is getting them in front of value, add know, a networkof VCs and investors that we know are also are strategic partners.

So we have strategic partners who are VCs and who are otherincubators as well. That's, that's not an. I think there's so many, so manyprojects out there that think there's enough incubators or accelerators orpeople that would support those projects to a really high level.

Mike Townsend: Yeah.Yeah. Okay. So you raised, was it 10 million from VCs originally with thepromise to invest that into different crypto protocols? Or was it more retailinvest? Like how, how did you initially raise the 10.

Saeed Aldarmaki: It wasall done through smart contract and it was all done through crypto. built thesmart contract on Binance smart chain and Ethereum whereby participants wouldput in Ethereum or Binance coin and that would be locked up into the liquiditypool then they would be generating rewards from staking our staking pools onour platform. And that's the equivalent. Having exposure to our portfolio,basically. So the returns of the portfolio kind of reinvested into, into the,the ecosystem and into our tokens. And that's how we keep the token momentumgoing.

Mike Townsend: Justso I understand that. So if somebody puts in a thousand dollars worth of guess,are they, are they, are they making an exchange to purchase a token that you'veissued? And that's how. That's how you raise the original 10.

Saeed Aldarmaki: Soyeah, they're getting getting we call when you stake, when you have a, when youprovide liquidity on a pair, which is our token paired against Ethereum, forexample, on Uniswap then you get the liquidity pool tokens and those liquiditypool tokens are staked on our platform.

Mike Townsend: Andthen from staking, that gives you the kind of rewards and returns from theactual portfolio.

Saeed Aldarmaki: Soit's a DeFi platform in a sense that you have to stake on the platform to getexposure.

Mike Townsend: Gotit. And they stake you invest, is that liquid or is there a year contract.

Saeed Aldarmaki:Yeah, there is liquidity on the token when we first started was about 4million, $5 million in liquidity on Ethereum, and there was about $4 millionliquidity on buy smart chain. Obviously prices have dropped since last year. Sothat liquidity level is about one and a half million on each chain at themoment. So there's good enough liquidity for people to be able to buy or selltokens on decentralized exchanges and on centralized exchanges.

Mike Townsend:Gotcha. Okay. So somebody comes in and they say, Hey, I'm I want to give it toSheesha finance to manage this money. They come, they come in with Ethereum,they stake Ethereum on your protocol, and then that they don't have access tothat until some period of time in the future. Is it, is it a set contract, likea one year.

Saeed Aldarmaki: Itwas a lockup of two years. Two years with a, with a staking fee that when youfirst start off, it's really high to fee to unstake, but then it lowers overtime until the two year passes.

Mike Townsend:Gotcha.

Saeed Aldarmaki: Okay.So people could get out, but there is also, yeah, but there is also the optionafter the kind of after the token was listed, then people could also purchasetokens on the market and just stake out our token on our platform to get theexposure without having to be.

Mike Townsend: Whyhave your own token, as opposed to just accept deposits via Ethereum and thenturn around and make the investments you wanted to make?

Saeed Aldarmaki:Yeah, I think it initially it was to be able to kind of because if you stakethe token on our platform, then that would through smart contract, that wouldwork out what kind of yield and returns you were expected based on theportfolio returns. So, that's the reason why we, we wanted to have a smartcontract and a staking and a DeFi platform. Then we kind of pivoted becausewhat we were doing is we were actually distributing the tokens of the Portfolioprojects to people's wallets, to people that were staking. But now we'vepivoted to kind of distributing just Sheesha tokens as reward. Rewards and morefocusing on the utility of the token and also the governance aspect of thetoken. So we wanted to a utility token so that people could stake the token oruse it to participate in governance of the platform. And then there are otherutilities that we're gonna add as we go along, like a launchpad and and otherutilities like around lottery and so on.

That's why we wanted to have a utility token attached and wewanted to do a raise through crypto and not the traditional way through equity.that, but actually the next step in a few months is to actually look at thefirst equity realm because the, the company is grown and we really want to takeit and scale it to the next level, by being able to provide the services thatwe are providing, not only to projects that are in our portfolio, but externalprojects out there in the wide market as.

Mike Townsend: Okay.So you go in the beginning, I imagine you say, Hey, we wanna raise from thecrypto community. There's this easier capital to access you probably accessfrom anywhere in the world, instantaneously. Also, you know, right. Timingspeople are looking for things to invest when you guys launch.

So you say, let's go crypto, you create your own token so thatthere is a smart contract to enable. The staking at a penalty that decreasesover time, which sounds really smart to do. And then you are taking that stakedwhen they staked ether on your protocol, you're then taking that, that moneyand investing it into different projects that you have qualified due diligence.

Is that, is that a, is that a centralized kind of mechanic oris that also onchain? How you're investing in the separate protocols? Like howdoes that technically work?

Saeed Aldarmaki: Inthe, in the back end? That's a great question. In the back end, it is prettymuch centralized because the team has to do the research and due diligence. Theteam has to speak to the projects and the founders, and then make a, make aninvestment decision. But I think where we're gonna make the kind of decisionmaking more decentralized. By implementing a DAO governance mechanism wherebywhen you stake the token on our platform, that gives you the right to vote within specific areas or specific areas regarding operations of the platform, orwhether deciding whether to invest on a project or not, or invest in a shortlist of projects and so on.

So that will be something that becomes more decentralized at alater stage, but for sure there needs to be a centralized element. You know,the whole, the whole idea is that we have the experience and the kind ofconnections and the knowhow over the years that it'll be very difficult fordecentralized team or a decentralized kind of platform to, to make those kindof decisions and have those tricky conversation with complicated conversationswith projects at that early stage.

Mike Townsend: Yeah.I'm I might be biased here, but I, I tend to think that the advantage. I thinkthe advantage of centralization is that you can make better decisions. If thepeople, it all comes down to, to me, it all comes down to work. Like whoever'swilling to put in the work to gain the knowledge, to make the decision is gonnabe more capable and so if you decentralize that, you basically like spread theodds. You say, if we all do the work and we're all responsible, this could beapplied to citizens in a country or. Monetary holders of an investment fund,then we'll do great. But whether it's centralized or decentralized, it doesn'tmatter in the sense that if people aren't putting in the work, the diligence,yeah.

Then there's gonna be bad, bad outcome, bad decisions made. SoI almost think there's a competitive advantage in centralizing. Investmentdecision. There's push back on this, please. But I think there's an advantageto having a central centralized decision making process on investment fundsbecause the people who are doing those deals are all day.

This is all they think about so it's hard to imagine anyonebeing better than them. And if there is better people, you can't imagine allthe token holders spending all day doing this. I mean, that would be just likean army of people. And so. I yeah. How do you see?

Saeed Aldarmaki:Yeah, I mean, there is, there is, there is disadvantages and there isadvantages for sure. I think like with a, with a do, for example, or agovernance model, you know, the advantages is that you're actually involvingeverybody that's in the community with, with the decision. disadvantages is,might be that yes, you know, Tho those people in the community might not have thekind of level of experience and expertise that's needed to make an informedjudgment on a project. Right. So, and then maybe also there's an element of,you know, you have to wait a specific period of time for people to make uptheir mind and so on. So there are, there are some frictions there and thereare some kind of things to, to keep in mind. we are open to a DAO model. Wewant to give, give the opportunity for people to express their opinions andthoughts, but nevertheless, regardless, even if there is a DAO model, our teamthat's dedicated to researching and looking into projects and finding projectsand having conversation with the teams of projects they'll continue to do soand they'll continue to kind of provide as much information as possible forpeople that want to vote that they can have a better. Informed, informed ideaof what, what the project is and, and all the, you know, positive and negativethings that we found in the project and they can make an assessment as well.

Mike Townsend: How doyou sort of articulate the advantage of having. this, this sort ofdecentralized decision making process for investments. How is this a, how isthis a better mechanism than if individuals were to just invest on their own?So I tend to think DAOs tend to. The projects that I talk to, they tend to havesome thing they're trying to create like a, some piece of software to solvesome real world problem.and then the DAO is set up to decide product featuresand implementation strategy, that kind of thing. But when you're, it soundslike what you're creating is that this is an investment fund and we'redecentralizing the decision or the governance on where to allocate money. Butwhy, why would that be better than if individuals just invested in theseprojects, individually?

Saeed Aldarmaki: Ithink there's a, there's a saying around the, the wisdom of the crowd. I thinkknow, if like, if there is, I think if you, if you look at some case studies,the actual, when you've got a lot, a large number of people making a vote on,let's say the number of things in a jar, the number of, you know, cookies in ajar for example, if you put it out there, for many people to vote on. I thinkyou'll find that the actual median or average of, of those comes down toreally, really very close to the actual amount. But if you do it on your own,you might not, you might be very far off, but when you average out the crowd,then it comes to, to a point which is really close to the most optimal, youknow, kind of answer. So I think in that sense, you know, it's kind of, youknow, maybe there's people out there see something that we might have missed,right. They ask a question that's very relevant that we haven't asked. So I thinkit's, it's good to kind of into the, kind of thoughts and pattern of votingfrom a bigger community.

Mike Townsend: Yeah.Yeah. Maybe, maybe the ideal strategy is sort of what you're implementing,which is the combination. If you can have a centralized diligence process whereall people think about on this, on this diligence processes, like theinvestigatory process of the project, and then excavating or taking out therelevant details, sharing those with the community, and then you have thedecentralized community way in. So, so it's like both kind of operatingtogether. Yeah, that sounds super interesting.

So how, remind me, how many deals have you done and, and where,where are you going in the future? You've spent the 10 million invested intoprojects. there any projects that stand out to you as having done exceptionallywell or things you're exceptionally excited about?

Saeed Aldarmaki:Yeah. So so to date, we've signed agreements, either investment or incubationor advisory agreements with 70 projects. still talking to a lot of projects inthe pipeline as well, you know, it's still a developing kind of framework thatwe are, we're putting up here and, and making decisions on these things, but wewant to be much, much more selective going forward. We have a really goodportfolio now that we feel confident will do well in the long term, on the questionof any exciting projects projects that have done well. There's, there's a fewthat, that I can mention. One of them is Altered State Machine, which is a kindof a AI NFT kind of project does done really well for us.

Splinterlands is a gaming play to earn kind of a card gameblockchain. That's done really well. And I've actually myself played that gamefor a few weeks and it's, it's a really, really good game. And I think thetoken is done really well. And then we have Luna crush is a kind of a socialplatform for all the different cryptocurrencies out and that's done well forus. And there are few projects that are coming up we're, we've incubated thatobviously need some time before they get to market, but they're looking veryexciting too. And just amazing to see the, the level of innovation and, and allthe ideas out there. I'm so happy that we can capture at least some of thoseand, and support them.

Mike Townsend: Superinteresting. Feel free to add another splinter off this or tangent, but I'mcurious the ecosystem and general attitude sentiment of the government inDubai, where you guys are based where live and where I think of as kind of a,this little utopia slash hyper advanced city is crypto fully supported,partially supported? Is it ambiguous how the government views crypto then howdo you sort of see traditional finance integration into all of this? I knowsomething that you want to chat about.

Saeed Aldarmaki:Great question. Yeah, I think, in terms of the government, the government'sbeen very supportive of blockchain technology and cryptocurrencies. They'vemade a firm commitment to kind of regulate cryptocurrencies. There's severalregulatory bodies that have been set up specifically related to digital assetsand virtual assets and, and cryptocurrencies. think the ecosystem is rapidlygrowing, especially over the last couple of years. The pandemic you buy kind ofgot back up to business as usual, pretty, you know, not, not that long afterthe pandemic kind of slowed down. And just a travel hub in general as well. Soa lot of people coming in and out of Dubai and there's so many differentcultures here and yes, it's, it's very modern and the latest kind of facilitiesare here. Entertainment wise, there's a lot of, know, really, really goodinternational restaurants here and bars and clubs and so on. I think it's just,I think a combination of things , has put Dubai kind of where it is now interms of of the top kind of jurisdictions for crypto. And a lot of people arekind of buzzing and talking about it. I think one of those things is that thecountry and the economy has been grow. Very rapidly over the last few yearsanyway, but I think because the government's been embracing emergingtechnologies and, and they've looked at blockchain and crypto and they felt,yes, this is something we want to be really associated with. From theleadership down, you know, they've been publicly kind of supporting crypto andblockchain. So I think it's just a lot of different things. And then thepandemic setting in. Other countries and other cities around the world,struggling with the pandemic, but Dubai was actually flourishing.

So that kind of all triggered in the last couple of years, likethis really, really big kind of momentum upwards in terms of the number ofbusinesses that wanna come and set up in Dubai, the number of the number ofpeople that wanna come to Dubai and do business on the crypto side. And I thinkit's just gonna continue growing.

Mike Townsend: Yeah.I, I would agree. It seems like those are good ingredients if you have,especially if you have governmental support and a fast growing economy andambitious people. What's your, what's your general like structure or mental modelfor thinking through and assessing different projects? Like how do you, do youhave different steps or how does the, how, how, how does the process work intoyour mind?

Saeed Aldarmaki:Yeah, I think think initially it's really important to kind of do your homeworkand, and do as much research as possible. you can, before you start kind ofapproaching the founders of the project, or even kind of just that initialfilter, I think is very important to kind of just because if you have 10 projectscoming to you and then you speak to all 10 that's, that's a lot of time andeffort and resources that's needed. If you have 10 projects and you filter outone or two you can really focus on those that you feel have the combination ofdifferent factors and variables, and that are important such as you know theteam, like what is the utility of the, of the token? What is the actualbusiness model? What is the user base? Do they have. Working product or not, orworking service or not, or an MVP and all these different considerations youhave to, to make it's much, much easier if you kind of have a criteria setcriteria and tick boxes, if you like, or just being able to score theseprojects before you actually really kind of start having in depth discussions withthem.

But I think once you've done that, then it's important toreally ask as many questions as possible to the people behind the project. Justmake an assessment on what they're like as people are they passionate about theproject, are they kind of receptive to feedback? A lot of different things thatyou'd need to consider when you're actually conversing with, with the peoplebehind the project.

Then it's important to kind of assess, okay. You know, is thissomething that we really want to invest in or. Then of course it's important toalso assess, okay, what is the size of the investment? and what's the terms andwhat's the besting period and lock up on the investment before you make a finaldecision.

So I think it's important to go through the steps that arerequired before you get to that final, final decision. It's always important toinclude as many people possible in, in as many different areas that you'regonna support these projects with whether it's marketing or BD or tech as welllegal and so on and, and make sure that the respective teams give theiropinions and, and ask the right questions from the projects.

Mike Townsend: Can wego a level deeper? Like what would you actually, what, what are the thingsyou're reading? The white paper, you're checking number of followers ontwitter, discord, telegram. You are definitely like what, what runs throughyour head when you're think of like what's, what are the checkpoints you runthrough prior to the engaging with the founders?

Saeed Aldarmaki: Ithink initially is what, what is the idea? It solve the problem? who's the teambehind the project. Where's is their tech at? Is it developed enough. For sure,marketing, how many people are following them? Users, how many people are usingtheir product or service if they do have one already. Yeah, I mean, socialmedia, you have to have a good social media following to be able to, to sellproject when it gets to market. Right? So that's, that's important, but it'snot really a kind of a deciding factor for us in the beginning. Projects arecoming to us at a really early stage. So at that point they still haven'treally gone out there and told people about their project yet, you know, so, soit just depends.

You know, you have to run, run through everything. Like youhave to run through a list that you've predetermined from experience and fromkind of doing it in the past and, and making sure you're you're coveringeverything. As many background as possible.

Yeah, but I mean, is there is there, and there's no kind oflike one answer to kind of okay.

Like what is most important? It depends maybe for a project. Ifyou feel that it's, it's kind of more retail focused, then maybe kind ofreally, really good marketing is, is super important. But if it's a projectwhich has a product or service, maybe more for kind of enterprises or bigbusinesses or so. Then maybe the social media or kind of followers or userbase, isn't it as important, right? Or so there's different factors, differentthings to consider. I think if you, if you look at every single angle and kindof make a judgment based based on that, then, you're good.

Mike Townsend: Arethere any lessons that have stood out to you as things that you've learnedeither about human psychology, I'm picturing, you know, how many people havefallen? The, I hate to call it like a Ponzi scheme, but it's like this conceptof we're creating this thing and put money in and we pay you more money outlike Celsius. These are like, these are projects so large that billions ofdollars worldwide, reputable investors have put in money to these projects.

And yet they collapse the zero. in recent, you know, months,are there things that not necessarily on Celsius, but are there examples ofeither mental models, whether it's like play to earn just conceptually is acircular feedback or invest to make more like, are there things that, that. II'm always interested in the things that become popular that are later provento be untrue by the reality of the outcomes and I wonder if there are those attoday looking back that you've said, yeah, this is actually something I'vechanged my opinion on. Then if there are things possibly going forward.

Saeed Aldarmaki:Sure. Yeah. I mean, you touched on the kind of play to earn model When the playto earn model first came out in the market that was like really hyped up and alot of people were excited about it. Any token, any token that had a play toearn model was. Really going through the roof, but then when you, when peoplestarted really going into the granular details of the token economy these kindof platforms and these play to earn platforms, then obviously they found flawsin them because usually after the period of hype and excitement, then it's aperiod of, okay, people actually look at the details and they look at the techbehind the project or whatever it is that, you know, that's really importantthan the fundamentals and that's what, what needs to be strong after a longperiod of time and, proves, proves that, you know, it's actually, it has autility or whatever it is like, for example, NFTs that they're just based on,you know, art or whatever, then it doesn't have a clear utility, but if you addcertain elements of utility to, to an NFT, then that becomes much moreinteresting and gives it a bit more value as well.

But I mean, you know, like there's things which in hindsight,it's, it's really wonderful. Like, you know, you can see a lot of things, butwhen you're actually experiencing something or going through something, thenit's really difficult to kind of, you know, or say, say to yourself, hang on.I'm gonna, is this the right decision or, or taking a step out is alsodifficult when you're really like, kind of in the zone of day in, day out,grinding and so on.

And you just have to kind of assess situations. Also kind oflook back and learn, learn from past experiences.

Mike Townsend: Yeah.So learning from past experiences, hindsight 2020, are, are there specificthings that you feel that you had an opinion on that you've later changed youropinion? Like you mentioned play to earn, did you feel like the concept of playto earn made sense and now you feel that it doesn't or are there other thingsinitially you, or kind of the most people viewed as like this makes sense andthen...

Saeed Aldarmaki: Ithink when, play-to-earn first came out, yes, we were kind of like followingthe trend because ultimately we also want to follow the trend. You want to seewhat people out there are excited about or what they really want to kind of seein the market. But know, like with the play-to-earn now, like the past fewmonths we did figure out actually yes, It's it's losing legs. There are flawswith the, with a lot of projects that are using the play to earn model. And weare being much more kind of selective with the play to earn projects that arecoming to us and asking the difficult questions that haven't been asked in thepast.

Mike Townsend: Whatabout the other side of it? Are there, are there projects or not necessarilyprojects, but themes and overall areas you think are. High potential to improvethe way human beings live broadly speaking. Are there like general themes youthink were set up to invest in?

Saeed Aldarmaki: Inthe metaverse the metaverse use case of, of blockchain, I think right now yes,a lot of people recognize that it has a lot of potential and this specific usecase of metaverse is important for the future. In the sense that everybody'sinteracting with games or platforms or whatever it is in a digital spaceanyway. then, then the virtual world and virtual reality and augmented realitynow plays a part in the metaverse use case. But then again, the tech behind alot of metaverse projects is not nowhere near ready yet to actually like,engage and, and be used by a, a big, big amount of people out there. And thinkthe quality of metaverse tech and projects out there is still is still nowherenear where it should be for, for the actual metaverse industry to grow to wherepeople are saying it's gonna grow to whether it's hundreds of billions ortrillions of dollars or whatever it is. But I think a lot of people tend toforget. , this is like still, really, really too, too early. It kind of remindsme of, you know, the utility or the use case of having security tokens. And, thehype, like in the last bull cycle, when the security tokens hype came out. Butthen at the time it was like, I also knew that it's, it's not really gonnareach its potential for at least another few years.

So those in those cases, you see. , you know, whether somethinghas long-term potential or not, and whether it's achieved it or not, but withplay to earn it, wasn't like a really like it was, it was around games thatalready existed and then attaching a token to it. And, and the, the technologyand the games were at a level where they were very interesting for, for a lotof gaming communities. But with metaverse, you know, that there's a lot of workthat still needs to be done. .

Mike Townsend: Yeah.And just quickly on, on play to earn, where are we now in the assessment ofthis general ambition? Is it people are still very excited about the potentialfuture upside? Is it kind of mixed opinions or is it like, Hey, this was aswing in a miss?

Saeed Aldarmaki:Think, I think people have seen that there's, there's been issues around,especially the play to earn projects, which haven't really. Looked very closelyinto the tokenomics and the token economy. They've used the wrong model for it.So I think know, with future play to earn projects, they really, really need todrill down into the, the token economy and make sure of the utility of thetoken before they kind of issue of token around a play to earn model.

Mike Townsend: Itdoesn't, it doesn't check out to me. It doesn't seem to make a lot of sense.Why, like the whole idea of playing and earning seem. Naturally like vehementlyopposed where it's like, if I'm doing something for money, that's not play. IfI, if. Yeah. So it always kind of felt like a strange, just juxtaposition tome.

Saeed Aldarmaki: ButI think, I think the people really, really are so glad and happy that the playto earn kind of projects really came out. There are the people who were, ifthey weren't playing games and earning from them, they wouldn't be making maybe10% of what they would be making on the play to earn model. Right? They'd bemuch, much poorer than they are or much worse self than they are right now. SoI. It's helped out a lot of people, especially in the pandemic times, too.

Mike Townsend: Themoney that they're earning is ultimately coming from other investors who areputting money into a token like, how, how. Yeah, just while we're on it. Like,what is the, what is the model that makes sense here with play, to earn like,how are people making money? Where, where does that come from?

Saeed Aldarmaki: Ithink as, I think as long as, because on the tokens or the token economy of theproject, they've assigned the specific percentage of the total supply of thetokens to be distributed as rewards to people playing the games, their game ontheir platform. Right. So, so there is kind of an allocation for tokens forpeople to receive as reward. But then what's most important is that actuallythose tokens are kind of not losing a lot of value over time and people arebecause if you're giving them for free to people as rewards, then people aremost likely gonna sell those tokens, which are cell pressure. So you need tomake sure you have to utility on the, so that on the, on the demand side or onthe buy side, buy pressure, is there also for people to want the token to notjust people to sell the token or receive it and sell it. So you have to payclose attention to things that would kind of negate negative impact of, of freetokens people having tokens for free.

Mike Townsend: Okay.Last thing I wanna throw at you is what are you generally most excited about?You, you have a ton of experience. You've looked at a ton of differentprojects, launched your own smart contract, investing token. What, what are youlike aiming at? Right.

Saeed Aldarmaki: Ithink I'm most excited about is actually all the projects that we're workingwith right now and, and getting Sheesha finance to the next level. I thinkthat's really, really, what's most exciting for me. And know, I think, I thinkwhat's most important in this period of which, which we call probably like it'sa down trend bear market. I dunno if it's the end of the bear market or if there'sanother few months or another year or so to go before the market recoversproperly. But I think whoever's been building or investing in solid qualityprojects right now. And those projects come. and you deliver on what theirroadmap is in the next kind of when the market goes back up, it's, that's gonnabe something that really kind of picks up before all the other kind of projectsthat are out there that are not successful or have failed to kind of deliver ontheir promises.

Mike Townsend: Hmm.And do you have a, a particular stance on. Monetary competition, you know,Bitcoin certainly being the biggest, I would say threat or alternative tomonetary supply USSD has been the global currency since world war II. Thatseems to be in question as the us kind of abuses that power by printingtrillions of dollars, in my opinion, more than they should.

Bitcoin has been kind of flat for a little while now. Do, doyou see this as, like, how do you, what's your mental model on the likecurrency supply, moving to crypto? A couple countries have acknowledged cryptoEl Salvador, most famously.

Saeed Aldarmaki:Yeah, I think, when it comes to the monetary system, the actual monetary systemitself, not, not like the global reserve currencies. Fiat currencies or whathave you, because there's always gonna be a global reserve currency. And therealways has been a period of like around a hundred years where there's been aspecific country or economy, or the, the currency of that country has beendominant and dominant and taken power. And that's why that currency that'sattached to that country is the global reserve currency because the economy isthe biggest and so on. But I think. The actual monetary system, which is money,as we know it, printing of money, central banks, interest rate. And, and so onthat actual system is flawed to me. So, you know, whatever the global reservecurrency is, it's that system is, is flawed. There's gonna be, you know,governments and central banks out. There's a lot of governments out there thatare in a hell of a lot of debt and that national debt is only rising over. Andit's just a vicious vicious cycle, which is not gonna end well. So I thinkBitcoin is just an alternative for people to kind of have an asset or havetheir wealth in something that is not attached to the monetary system and isnot gonna be kind valued with inflation that we are seeing now and, and so onand so forth. So I think Bitcoin is, has the potential to be. new kind of formof money, a new kind of system of money out there. And the current monetarysystem I think is, is just it's on its last legs. I think. So it's important tohave something as an alternative, which El Salvador has used recently, right?

They've adopted Bitcoin as their national currency cause theirown local currency, so devalue. And a lot of countries are struggling with thehyper inflation of their, and their reserve, their own currency devaluing somuch.

Mike Townsend: Yeah.Do you see these countries start to take on the same role that El Salvador didwhere they say this is our national currency, and then you start to see Bitcoinbeing more, more adopted as global reserve currency. Is that kind of thetrajectory you think makes most.

Saeed Aldarmaki: I, Ithink, you know, over the next few years you will see countries of that havefailing current failing traditional currencies, adopt Bitcoin as a, as a, astheir own currency. It'll be not a huge amount of countries, I don't think, butI don't think that's gonna be the kind of don't think that's gonna be the, thereason of mass adoption. I think mass adoption comes. it really, it reallyovertakes the, the existing monitoring system. And when you see theramifications of the, the monetary system failing, and that's when more andmore people are gonna start to go towards it, it doesn't that it doesn't haveto be countries that adopt like a Bitcoin. It can be individuals. And thatnumber of people that use Bitcoin or crypto is gonna increase over time.

Mike Townsend: Mm.Yeah. China certainly plays a role in this picture. Do you see a scenario? Morelikely that China tries to displace the U.S. As the, the central Fiat basedreserve currency? Can there can two exist simultaneously? Like can there be a.Us backed or Chinese backed reserve currency, maybe even digitally issued, youknow, CBDC style, like do do these two worlds. Can they exist at the same timewhere like Bitcoin is a massively adopted reserve currency as well as a Chineseor U.S.?

Saeed Aldarmaki: Ithink initially China is at some point in the future in the near future or themedium term future. I think China will, as an economy overtake the us economy.I think they're, they're getting to that point, the, the level of growth thatyou're seeing in the Chinese GDP compared to us and other countries know,China's definitely really growing much, much faster. And at, at some point it.Becomes a dominant economy and then when it becomes the dominant economy, thenthe Chinese currency will be the global reserve currency. There can't be morethan one global reserve currency that everybody agrees that, yes, this is the,like the us dollar is the global reserve currency. Everybody recognizes that,but at some point it will come where China will be will have the reservecurrency. It's just a matter of time, not of if it's a matter of. when, andthen Bitcoin will slowly over time. And I think much, much longer term willstart having people, you know use it rather than traditional currencies. Andpeople will, will resort to, you know, a digital wallet and, and cryptocurrencyin the digital word wallet than, rather than relying on banks at, at one pointat some point.

Mike Townsend: .So,yeah. Sounds reasonable to me. . Yeah, I agree. it. I love your perspective.You know, having invested in so many different projects living in Dubai raisingmoney on the smart contract. Do you wanna throw out the, if you're on Twitter,writing on medium, anything personally, we'll have all the links for Sheeshafinance in the show notes.

[SaeedAldarmaki: Sure. sheeshafinance.io is, is our website. You can findeverything and anything you need about us. Twitter I'm known as at metaverse shon Twitter is a bit long, but if you can spell that, you can find it. I thinkplease, please see what we're doing, please follow us. And thank you, Mike,for, for having me on the show and really interesting conversations we've had.

Mike Townsend: Andlook forward to seeing you in Dubai one day as well. .

Saeed Aldarmaki: Yes.Yeah. Thanks so much, Ty. This is a lot of fun. Cheer.

Mike Townsend: Thankyou so much. See you man.